Diana Durham is a fascinating writer and poet who has been involved in the collective life of intentional community in England, the United States and Canada over the past thirty years. In the early 1980’s she was among a grouping that began to explore dialogue and collective intelligence with the late theoretical physicist David Bohm. Those initial conversations became the book: Unfolding Meaning: A weekend of conversation with David Bohm (Foundation House Publications). Out of these experiences Durham began a deep inquiry into the possibility that our current ecological crises are reflections of a prevailing dysfunctional sense of identity and consciousness in us as human beings.
These ideas were later explored in her non-fiction book The Return of King Arthur: Completing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self Knowledge (Tarcher/Penguin), coming to focus in the figure of the Wounded King and the Wasteland Kingdom that is a reflection of his wound found in the grail myth. Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life, said the following of Durham’s revolutionary interpretation of the Arthurian myth:
“The Return of King Arthur is an outstanding and important reminder that the two entwined stories (the Grail quest and the King Arthur story) are more than relevant to solving modern problems. It also demonstrates how multiple individual paths can come together to determine the nature of collective destiny.”
In addition to this important analysis, Durham performed and co-produced an audio-play retelling of the grail myth called Perceval & the Grail, a recording of which can be found at CD Baby and other music outlets.
Originating as a writer of poetry, Durham was a member of the renowned poetry performance group Angels of Fire, who performed throughout London and the UK, including the Royal Festival Hall’s ‘VoiceBox.’ In New Hampshire she founded ‘3 Voices,’ featuring the work of three women writers who weave their poetry and prose together both on the page and in performance. Her own poetry books include Sea of Glass (Diamond Press), To the End of the Night (a Northwoods Press competition winner), and most currently, Between Two Worlds (Chrysalis Poetry), a collection of 50 sonnets to explore the relationship between inner and outer awareness. The latter was recently performed with musician, Christos Vayenas.
Durham is a graduate of University College London (BA in English Literature) and was in 2011 a Visiting Research Associate at the Women’s Studies Research Centre, Brandeis. She is also a certified practitioner of ‘Attunement,’ a lifestyle and healing practice; and a founder member of the Seacoast Attunement Practitioners, based in her home town of Portsmouth, NH, that run workshops and conferences on Attunement, Women’s Healing Space and the Ethics of Personal Power for mental health professionals. Diana, her husband and two children are British, but have lived in the USA for the past 20 years. They own a production company that makes documentaries, dramas and commercials. One of the projects developed for Discovery Channel involved extensive research into the megalithic sites of Britain, some of which forms the backdrop for her novel, The Curve of the Land, forthcoming from Skylight Press.
Skylight Press delights in fiction written by soulful poets – so we are thrilled to publish Diana Durham’s first novel in the upcoming weeks.
Through the Skylight 